Origin and history of shellac

red resinous substance (an incrustation deposited by females of an insect on twigs of certain trees in southern Asia), 1550s, perhaps immediately from French lacce, displacing or absorbing earlier English lacca (early 15c. in medical texts as a substance in making pills), from Medieval Latin lacca. All these are from Persian lak, from Hindi lakh (Prakrit lakkha), from Sanskrit laksha "red dye," which is of uncertain origin.

According to Klein and Century Dictionary, it means literally "one hundred thousand" and is a reference to the insects that gather in great numbers on the trees and create the resin. But other sources say lakh is perhaps an alteration of Sanskrit rakh, from an IE root word for "color, dye" [Watkins]. Still another guess is that Sanskrit laksha is related to English lax, lox "salmon," and the substance perhaps was so called from being somewhat the color of salmon [Barnhart].

Also see shellac (n.). Related: Lacic; lacinic.

early 14c., "to cover or overlay (walls) with plaster;" late 14c., "to coat with a medicative plaster," from plaster (n.) and partly from Old French plastrier "to cover with plaster" (Modern French plâtrer), from plastre. Figurative use, "to load to excess" (with praise, etc.), is from c. 1600. Meaning "to bomb (a target) heavily" is first recorded 1915. Sports sense of "to defeat decisively" is from 1919. as an adjective, plastered is from late 14c. as "coated with plaster." The slang meaning "very drunk" is attested by 1912.